Hi All,My name is Francesco, in the hobby since September last year, I am Italian and I live in Slovakia.
I grew up far from cities and mostly in "low Bortle areas", so I had the luck to build an intimate relationship with the night sky, I love science in every aspect and as a strong contributor of my growth as a human being.
I am 44 year old, always wanted to have a telescope but never had the occasion to really go for it.
COVID-19 and the change of my house, in june last year, put together the right conditions to have some spare time from usual routines and two very big balconies with an overall 360 view (and Polaris visible from both of them !) to spend this extra time on.
I started with a Meade ETX-80, at the time I estimated that a 400 euro scope (and alt/az go to mount !!!) was an investment on the “middle range”, so in case the experience was not so thrilling I would have wasted “only” 400 euro…
The ETX-80 gave me the hook… I passed one month almost every night stargazing, the Double Cluster, Albireo, The Pleiades… what a dream…
In meantime I could see in practice many of the theoretical readings I had till then…
But it was soon not enough… Almost all the nebulas and galaxies were just puffy milky spots on the eyepiece and the first picture of Jupiter and the 4 Galilean moons I took on prime focus from the ETX with an old Nikon D3000 was an additional hook, but drastically shown the limits of the setup…
so I stepped up, built up an average astrophotography setup (spent like to buy a small car) and started the adventure.
I love everything of this hobby/passion… from the challenging steep learning curve to the transversal multidisciplinary knowledge it requires, but also the people i met till now on the road : willing to explain, help, share…
I made a lot of mistakes… from incredibly naïve distractions to real conceptual failures that set me back (happily) to many starting points, in order to understand where I was wrong, and why, and how to make it right.
I joined astrobin one month ago, after stumbling into it many times in the past months
is a great source of knowledge and inspiration, I lurked a bit, posted some pics and finally… I introduced myself.
I hope to become a good member of this community, either for the pictures I will make and share, either helping and advising some fellow Astrophotographer … once I get some more knowledge and experience
I grew up far from cities and mostly in "low Bortle areas", so I had the luck to build an intimate relationship with the night sky, I love science in every aspect and as a strong contributor of my growth as a human being.
I am 44 year old, always wanted to have a telescope but never had the occasion to really go for it.
COVID-19 and the change of my house, in june last year, put together the right conditions to have some spare time from usual routines and two very big balconies with an overall 360 view (and Polaris visible from both of them !) to spend this extra time on.
I started with a Meade ETX-80, at the time I estimated that a 400 euro scope (and alt/az go to mount !!!) was an investment on the “middle range”, so in case the experience was not so thrilling I would have wasted “only” 400 euro…
The ETX-80 gave me the hook… I passed one month almost every night stargazing, the Double Cluster, Albireo, The Pleiades… what a dream…
In meantime I could see in practice many of the theoretical readings I had till then…
But it was soon not enough… Almost all the nebulas and galaxies were just puffy milky spots on the eyepiece and the first picture of Jupiter and the 4 Galilean moons I took on prime focus from the ETX with an old Nikon D3000 was an additional hook, but drastically shown the limits of the setup…
so I stepped up, built up an average astrophotography setup (spent like to buy a small car) and started the adventure.
I love everything of this hobby/passion… from the challenging steep learning curve to the transversal multidisciplinary knowledge it requires, but also the people i met till now on the road : willing to explain, help, share…
I made a lot of mistakes… from incredibly naïve distractions to real conceptual failures that set me back (happily) to many starting points, in order to understand where I was wrong, and why, and how to make it right.
I joined astrobin one month ago, after stumbling into it many times in the past months
is a great source of knowledge and inspiration, I lurked a bit, posted some pics and finally… I introduced myself.
I hope to become a good member of this community, either for the pictures I will make and share, either helping and advising some fellow Astrophotographer … once I get some more knowledge and experience
